Today I have the Reeta Shirt Dress by Named Clothing in not one, but two, variations!

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This pattern is an oldie, but a goodie, and is already very well known and loved in the sewing community. And, frankly, given that I have 15 shirt dresses in my closet, I’m not quite sure why, as a shirt dress lover, I’d not gotten around to sewing the Reeta Shirt Dress until now.

I have to confess, and this will probably sound silly, but when I first started sewing I found Named Clothing a bit intimidating, I’m not really sure why. It was perhaps a bit too “fashionable” and model-ly for beginner-me 7 or so years ago who had no idea where to start in terms of either sewing or personal style?

This fear, however, has been well and truly conquered and I consistently find that Named Clothing’s patterns fit me really well.

Now, if you want the short version of this blog post and my thoughts on this pattern, here it is: I fucking love the Reeta shirt dress! I sewed my first version (the pink one) and though “holy shit I need to make another one immediately!”.

Between the collar, the pocket details, the substantial elbow length sleeve, the cuff details on that sleeve, the midi-length, and the use of cord at the waist for that combination of definition and comfort, I find it just about shirt dress perfection!

My Reeta Shirt Dress

One thing I quite enjoy about sewing Named Clothing’s patterns is that all my body parts fit right into a single size. This is rare for me, as there is very often a two-size difference between my bust and my waist for most other sewing pattern companies.

My bust, waist and hip measurements placed me all in a size 44 for the Reeta Shirt Dress. So that’s what I sewed.

Simple!

The Reeta Shirt Dress is available in size 32-56 (European)/0-24 (US)/4-38 (UK) size range. The maximum size caters for a full bust of 134 cm (52 3/4″), waist of 118cm (45 1/2″) and hips of 142cm (55 7/8cm).

I did, however, decide to measure up the sleeve pattern piece to see how much ease it would give me at the bicep, as the upper arm is an area where I often need to modify patterns. I had to measure this from the pattern pieces as no finished garment measurements for the upper arm are provided. Based on this, I decided to to do a very slight full bicep adjustment and added about 1.5cm of extra ease across the bicep.

Apart from this, the only other changes that I made throughout the process were minor aesthetic ones as follows.

I sewed my pockets with the pleat feature reversed, as I preferred the look of the pocket that way. I topstitched down the outside edge of my facing because I would rather have a visible line of stitching than an unsecured facing annoying me eternally (well, it wouldn’t be totally unsecured, in view of the buttons, but I just really like my facings to be securely tucking away all the ugly insides!)

In terms of where the cording is placed, my waist is significantly higher than the channel marked on the pattern piece. My pink Reeta shirt dress has the waist cording channel raised 1.5 inches from the recommended placement, and on the denim version it is 2 inches higher.

This is in no way an issue because when you are sew the Reeta Shirt Dress, sewing in a ribbon to create a channel for the cord is one of the last things you do. So it is very easy to make most of your dress and then try it on to recommend the best possible waist channel placement for the look you prefer.

Apart from these very minor things, both these versions are pretty much the Reeta shirt dress “straight out the enevelope”.

Reeta Shirt Dress: Fabric choices

The pink Reeta Shirt Dress is sewn from a washed linen viscose blend which I purchased from Stragier tissu.

I was so excited when I found this fabric as, to me, it is undistguishable from a viscose linen blend which have ordered from Blackbird fabrics a few times in the past. The Blackbird one is the one I used for this dress.

Yet, not having to pay shipping and import duties from Canada makes it A LOT cheaper to buy from Stragier, so I am rather excited now to have this fabric readily available!! In quite a few colours no less!!!

The denim Reeta Shirt Dress is made from a lightweight hemp denim also from Blackbird fabrics. I have used this fabric before and liked it so much that I bought more and was hoarding it out of pure indecisiveness of what I wanted to do with it!

I think I have had at least 10 different plans for what I was going to do with it at different stages.

Then, after seeing how much I loved the Reeta Shirt Dress with the pink version, all that indecision melted away and I cut into my denim without fear!

Sewing the Reeta Shirt Dress

I found it pretty straightforward and easy to sew the Reeta shirt dress.

There is a step, fairly early, where you end up with a rather unwieldy construction to wrangle about because you end up with everything except your sleeves attached to either your upper or lower back yoke and it kind of resembles an octopus, as both the front, back and facings are very long pieces.

But, apart from it being a bit physically awkward to wrestle an octopus under your sewing machine, the instructions were all straight forward and I didn’t find anything difficult in the sewing process.

In fact, the one thing that was a tad difficult was sourcing cord in a coordinating colour.

My local bricks and mortar store (which I can visit again without an appointment, yeah!) had nothing. Online, I could find something blue for the denim Reeta Shirt Dress easily, but the pink was much harder.

I initially tried with a pink ribbon, but, again, the only coordinating colour I found was a very narrow ribbon (5mm) and is not really strong enough to be up to the task. While waiting for some other cord to arrive online, I put in the drawstring you see in these photos, which came from an old pair of pyjama pants. It does its job well but I would prefer a coordinating colour.

In the end, the only cord I could buy in the right colour is a satin cord which is still very narrow and rather delicate, so I’m a tad worried it will have the same problem as the ribbon I initially tried. It’s been too chilly here for me to actually wear these dresses yet, so I will just have to experiment and go back to the pyjama drawstring you see in these photos if worse comes to worse!

The only little tip I wanted to share, is that I got so excited making my pink Reeta Shirt Dress that I forgot to do something which is usually crucial for me: adding in-seam pockets. I think of chest pockets as being for aesthetic purposes, rather than being functional. I have lost too many mobile phones out of them while bending over to think otherwise. Further, the lack of utility of chest pockets is only magnified when they are sewn in a rather lightweight fabric!

But, I got swept up in the project that I forgot to add them to the pink version. I think I was exhausted from wrangling an octopus!

No worries, I thought, as I started the denim Reeta Shirt Dress. After all, the pink fabric is quite delicate so it was perhaps too fine for in-seam pockets anyway. But I was determined to add in-seam pockets to the denim version.

Buuuut, I somehow, YET AGAIN, got caught up in the excitment of the moment and only realised I had forgotten to add pockets a second time at the very end of the project.

I guess years worth of regretting the fact that I don’t have in-seam pockets is the only appropriate penance for such a double dose of forgetfulness! (Yeah, yeah, I have a bit of extra fabric leftover for the denim, so I could go back and add them now, but, let’s face it, that just isn’t going to happen – I’ll do my penance!!)

If you want to see more of my sewing adventures, you can find me on Instagram here.